Latest / Inspiring Stories / Learn to Wow Your Clients with Vance Morris
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the picture of the radiant.
- 0:26Speaker 2: Rat. You readything to me?
- 0:33Speaker 3: Oh well, well say, oh well, not a bad stop.
- 1:09Speaker 2: I'd just see smash it.
- 1:32Speaker 3: Event.
- 1:37Speaker 1: Okay, Welcome back everybody. Our next guest, Vance Morris Will
- 1:42Vance spent ten years working for the Mouse at Walt
- 1:45Disney World in Orlando, Florida. He started his career at
- 1:49Disney on the opening team of the Yacht and Beach
- 1:55Club resorts and progress through the management ranks as a
- 2:01nightclub manager at Pleasure Island, service trainer, provider on board
- 2:07Impress Lily and revitalize a team of the Contemporary resort
- 2:13in the mid nineties. It was the Contemporary that Vance
- 2:18got his crowning achievement designing, opening, operating the Chief Mickey's
- 2:28Disney flagship Character dining experience. So what we're going to
- 2:36hoping to learn from today is how to build within
- 2:40our own business, our own services, a customer centered experience
- 2:46for those clients. So one, we welcome Vance to the
- 2:50show and get started. H Well, welcome to the show. Vance.
- 3:29You are the expert of experts in customer centered experiences
- 3:34for for our businesses, aren't you.
- 3:38Speaker 4: Well? I self crowned yes, well, I appreciate it.
- 3:46Speaker 1: It was something I did for a software company I
- 3:50worked with. I made sure that they tried to make
- 3:52sure that the customer was at the center of the
- 3:55whole experience, so that you know, it's been stick cater
- 4:00to your to your client or customer. Otherwise they will
- 4:04find somebody else who will, right, they will?
- 4:08Speaker 4: They will. You got to you got to put a
- 4:10titanium fence around your customers, keeping them in and your
- 4:14and your competitors out.
- 4:16Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 4:17Speaker 1: So, uh, but do you if you learned it from
- 4:22from some of the very best with with with your
- 4:26experience at Disney?
- 4:30Speaker 4: I did. Yeah. Spent ten years working for the Mouse
- 4:32down in Orlando.
- 4:34Speaker 1: Yeah, so describe that a little bit. What how did that?
- 4:39How did that work out for you? Could you like
- 4:41moved up the ranks? Right?
- 4:43Speaker 4: I did quite a bit. I was on the opening
- 4:46team of the Yachton Beach Club resort back in nineteen ninety.
- 4:52Really a great experience. I mean, opening anything at Disney
- 4:57is just a tremendous serience. It doesn't matter if you've
- 5:01been there, if you knew, or if you've been there
- 5:03twenty years, you know, going in all the nooks and
- 5:06crannies before any guest arrives is just completely eye opening.
- 5:11One of the things I learned first, and it really
- 5:15surprises a lot of people. There'n't anything really to do
- 5:18with guest experience or picking up trash and keeping the
- 5:21place clean. It is all about systems and process and
- 5:25that's what Disney is really all about. During our training
- 5:29I walked into the training room and they were just
- 5:32stacks and stacks of binders everywhere, I mean four inches thick.
- 5:36And you got to remember, this is before everybody had
- 5:38a cell phone and before every desk had a computer.
- 5:42And so I asked my boss, I said, what is
- 5:45all this stuff? He goes, well, these are all the
- 5:48SOPs and OgTs on how to open and operate a
- 5:52Disney resort. And by golly, they had a binder for
- 5:55every position there was, you know, valet, server, busboy, you
- 6:00name it. They had a standard for it. I was
- 6:04completely blown away by it and systems and standards. A
- 6:10lot of people kind of they get itchy about that
- 6:14kind of stuff because oh, I don't want to you know,
- 6:18I don't have any freedom to do what I want.
- 6:20And I'm like, oh, it gives you a certain amount
- 6:24of freedom because if you are used to just doing
- 6:28all of this stuff by rote, you're not really having
- 6:31to think about it. It gives you the freedom to
- 6:33do all of the nice stuff that Disney is known for.
- 6:37And as a business owner, systems give you freedom as well,
- 6:41because if you've got systems in your business and then
- 6:44you have somebody manage those systems, but you don't need
- 6:48to be in the business every day.
- 6:51Speaker 1: That's a very good point. So instead of you know,
- 6:55and that's why.
- 6:58Speaker 4: That's why I've set it up. You know myself, if
- 7:00I'm here in Maryland, I have three home service businesses.
- 7:02I got a molder mediation company or we're in a
- 7:05rug washing facility, and a carpet cleaning company. And I
- 7:08took all my Disney knowledge and I packed it into
- 7:10those three businesses. And about seven years ago I put
- 7:14a general manager in charge, and I said, run the systems.
- 7:18Don't scream with anything, just run the systems. And right
- 7:23now all I do is I spend about ninety minutes
- 7:25a week on those businesses, cash the checks, kiss the babies,
- 7:29and spend about ninety minutes a week working with the GM.
- 7:33Speaker 1: Wow, can't beat that one, So do you know one,
- 7:38you know and all that, right, you know, yeah.
- 7:43Speaker 5: I mean it took time to get there, but you
- 7:45know that is to me, that's the definition of financial
- 7:49freedom is, you know, being able to come and go
- 7:52from the business as.
- 7:53Speaker 4: I please, and when I do that, I have no
- 7:55effect on the sales of the business.
- 7:59Speaker 1: Right, So what you might be your picture might be
- 8:09the the oh, here's the owner and and visionary of
- 8:15the business, but you don't have to be there for
- 8:17the daily operation.
- 8:21Speaker 4: Yeah, you know. And again going back to my Disney days,
- 8:25you know, I mean Walt Disney couldn't be everywhere all
- 8:28the time, so he had to have strong systems and
- 8:32processes in place that would guarantee the delivery of a
- 8:36great guest experience. And without systems to be able to
- 8:42do that, you don't know whether you're going to get
- 8:45a good experience or not. I mean, think about all
- 8:48the places you visit to buy something or get service.
- 8:52A lot of times you're not sure whether you're going
- 8:54to get a good experience or not. And that's probably
- 8:57because they don't have systems in place. So you know,
- 9:00with Disney, you're going to get back consistency, and one
- 9:06of the key things too. You know at Disney was
- 9:10that we all had a mission, and every different department,
- 9:15every different area of Disney had its own mission, and
- 9:21the mission was always bigger than your job. So you
- 9:24know your mission. You know, your job might have been
- 9:26to sweep the streets or serve food, but the mission
- 9:30was to make people happy. And that was really every
- 9:35minimum wage employee could wrap their brain around that. And
- 9:40so many businesses had mission statements and nobody knows what
- 9:43the hell they are. At Disney, it was simple, we
- 9:47make people happy. And so when we were developing Chef Mickey's,
- 9:52which is the restaurant that I developed and operated, we
- 9:57knew there a mission had to be centered around happiness.
- 10:01The rest of our mission was we had to get
- 10:03the mouse through four hundred seats in forty three minutes
- 10:07and make it be a great experience and make people
- 10:09happy because we had well, obviously four hundred seats and
- 10:15table for two in our restaurant, talk about forty two
- 10:19to forty five minutes to eat. And if they didn't
- 10:22get to see the mouse, well, they sat there raided
- 10:25and they got cranky, and then they extended our weight
- 10:28and the people waiting to come in got cranky and
- 10:31cranky people don't have fun, and if you're not having fun,
- 10:34you don't spend money.
- 10:37Speaker 1: That is very true. Now they having worked as a
- 10:42as a chef four hundred, four hundred seats in a restaurant,
- 10:51that's a bit daunty. I mean you, I mean, you
- 10:54want to talk about one hell of a system just
- 10:57to make sure that the food gets out on time.
- 10:59Not only making for everybody gets to see the mouse.
- 11:04Speaker 4: We actually had a mirrored kitchen. We had an A
- 11:07line and a B line and there were literally mirrors
- 11:11of each other, and the A line cooked for the
- 11:14even number tables. The BEE line the odd number tables
- 11:19so evenly split. So it was literally like having two
- 11:24restaurants in one area.
- 11:27Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but again.
- 11:30Speaker 4: That was the system in the process we had to
- 11:32put in place to ensure we could get the mouse
- 11:36through those four hundred seats.
- 11:38Speaker 1: Yeah, and have everybody eaten about forty two minutes, well at.
- 11:45Speaker 4: Least tables for two, because they were the ones that
- 11:49would eat the quickest, tables for six or eight. You know,
- 11:52they linger a little bit longer, so some of them
- 11:55got to see the mouse twice, which is fine that
- 12:00you know, tables for two turn faster, and so we
- 12:04had to make sure that the mouse got through in
- 12:07the amount of time.
- 12:07Speaker 1: The table for two, well, I'm just thinking to myself
- 12:14that the table for two is probably the most common.
- 12:18The table for six or higher is is a bit
- 12:23of an of an anomaly. One of the places I
- 12:29cooked and you we had to know ahead of time
- 12:31if you had a table greater than four. We needed
- 12:35to know, yeah, that you were coming, so we could
- 12:40make sure that we had, you know, the basics prepared
- 12:44and ready to go. So yeah, yeah, So running a
- 12:52restaurant seemed would seem to be different, very different than
- 12:56running a carpet cleaning or oriental rug cleaning business. But
- 13:08how many of the systems actually work out to be
- 13:10about the same when you're trying to make.
- 13:13Speaker 4: People, you know, I mean, at the end of the day,
- 13:18that's what we you know, we wanted to make sure
- 13:22our customers were happy the way we made them happy
- 13:25cleaning their upholstery, cleaning their carpet. Our mission with those
- 13:30businesses was to create a healthy home. Not so much
- 13:35make them happy, but create a healthy home. And you know,
- 13:40really the systems and processes were no different except the
- 13:46actual widget and deliverable. You know, instead of carrying a tray,
- 13:50we you know, carry hoses and whatnot. But the theory
- 13:55and the strategies are identical. You know, how how do
- 14:00you treat the home or the guest with respect? How
- 14:04do you treat you know, your attention to detail, All
- 14:09of these things are you know, go from one industry
- 14:12to the next, there there's no difference. And you know
- 14:17when you're looking at details, you know, every detail in
- 14:21your business is either enhancing or detracting from the experience.
- 14:24There is no middle ground. You know. So if you've
- 14:27got dusty house plants in your waiting room, well that's
- 14:30detracting from the experience.
- 14:33Speaker 1: You know.
- 14:33Speaker 4: If you if you drive a van for work and
- 14:37you go to people's homes and you haven't washed it
- 14:39in a couple of weeks, well that's detracting from the experience.
- 14:43I mean, we're a cleaning company, so we washed the
- 14:46van every day before we go out. I mean, would
- 14:50not be congruent if we showed up in a dirty van.
- 14:54Speaker 1: Oh, it's simply put, how's he going to clean my
- 14:57house if he can't clean his own van? Right?
- 15:00Speaker 4: Exactly?
- 15:01Speaker 1: Yeah, you know some of the lists of things on
- 15:06on your on your resume NASA for instance, in the
- 15:15UH it said something about the President of the United States.
- 15:19So how did how did you wind up and what
- 15:23did you do for them?
- 15:28Speaker 4: Yeah? That was That was about twenty years ago. Now
- 15:31I was still in food service at the time, and
- 15:35our company had the contract for not the East Wing,
- 15:40but the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is the old
- 15:46old East Wing, so it housed all of the Vice
- 15:50President's offices were in there, the military airlift was in
- 15:54their UH Secret Service, and then we also had across
- 15:58the street from the White House where as the new
- 16:01Executive Office building. You gotta love how they named their buildings,
- 16:06and that had Secret Service and a couple of other
- 16:09departments and were responsible for catering and food service in there.
- 16:15And I was also around that time, I was also
- 16:20a food service director for the Smithsonian Museum System, which
- 16:25was a lot of fun. Nothing like creating a dinner
- 16:30party around the Hope Diamond. Talk about an incredible customer experience.
- 16:37Certainly nothing like that in the world.
- 16:40Speaker 1: Wow, I I I probably forgot that they even had
- 16:46the Hope Diamond. There was visiting or something there was
- 16:52that it was visiting there. It was it's not permanently
- 16:55housed there.
- 16:56Speaker 4: No diamond is in the Natural History Museum, Washington, d C.
- 17:03Speaker 1: I just learned something. And a big fan of Smiths Smithsonian,
- 17:09uh because of all the it's a it's a great
- 17:14science museum, you know.
- 17:17Speaker 4: Uh.
- 17:18Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 17:19Speaker 4: And then Kennedy Center for the Performing Art same way.
- 17:24You know, we we did a lot of work. Really,
- 17:27it wasn't so much the main stage because if you
- 17:31don't know, I mean Kennedy Center, it's got a lot
- 17:33of like mini stages, you know, and smaller auditoriums, and
- 17:38so that was where a lot of the work needed
- 17:41to be done to kind of improve those experiences. But
- 17:46you know, putting that stuff in the place was it
- 17:48was very rewarding.
- 17:50Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it sounds like a pretty rewarding thing to
- 17:56to be able to do, you know. So, and so
- 18:03it was all wrapped around food service, he said, though
- 18:07at the time, yeah, yeah.
- 18:09Speaker 4: But I was also an employee at the time, and
- 18:15I've discovered that I make a lousy employee. I don't
- 18:20like to be told what to do, which is probably
- 18:23why I went out of my own and it's probably
- 18:27a why a lot of entrepreneurs business owners go out
- 18:30is because they they know they can do it better.
- 18:33Speaker 1: It's a common theme for for entrepreneurs, right, Uh no,
- 18:38I can do that better then then they do. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
- 18:47I will include myself in that. One is like you know,
- 18:50you know, wonder the reasons why I created my own
- 18:54company was because hey, I believe I can do this better.
- 18:59Uh so yeah one, and from my point of view,
- 19:05I do do do it better than what my employers
- 19:10would have. Yeah. So you know, well, we've.
- 19:14Speaker 4: Got the freedom to be able to do what we
- 19:15need to do. We don't have to go and ask somebody.
- 19:18We just go and do it. Yeah, and if it works, great,
- 19:21we re the rewards. And if it doesn't work, you're like,
- 19:25well all right, you know it didn't work, I'll take
- 19:28my liking.
- 19:29Speaker 1: Yeah. So along with creating, like all the systems and
- 19:33everything that there are, of course is going to be
- 19:36centered around what that mission for for your business is
- 19:41creating a healthy home or making sure everybody had some
- 19:47semblance of a voice is how do you how do
- 19:54you go about with all the systems finding the right
- 19:59employees is that would share that vision with you and
- 20:02would share that passion with you.
- 20:06Speaker 4: Sure, A great question.
- 20:09Speaker 6: At Disney, and even now you know, thirty years later,
- 20:15I hire people that have what I call a heart
- 20:19for service.
- 20:21Speaker 4: I do not hire people that have previous carpet cleaning
- 20:25experience because I can teach that to you. And actually,
- 20:30I really don't want you showing up with any bad habits.
- 20:33So I'd rather teach you from the beginning and not
- 20:36have any you coming to me with shortcuts and bad
- 20:39habits that you learned on a previous job. But if
- 20:42you can show up and having a heart for service,
- 20:47I can't teach you to be nice. I can't teach
- 20:51you to want to help people. I can't teach you
- 20:54to show up on time and dress well. But I
- 20:58can teach you all of the other things. You know,
- 21:00how to clean the car part, how to carry a
- 21:02train in a restaurant. So I look for people that
- 21:06have that heart for service. Disney does this marvelously. You
- 21:10know they do it. I mean they do it with
- 21:11a lot of you know, pre employment testing, psychological testing,
- 21:15things like that Myers Briggs and items like that that
- 21:21you know. I tend to use a lot of scenarios
- 21:24and what if situations and what would you do in
- 21:28this scenario and really see how the the applicant will reply.
- 21:38And I haven't been wrong yet. Well, I take that back.
- 21:43The first couple of years it was rough. But right
- 21:46now my shortest tenured employee is three and a half years.
- 21:51My longest tenured employee is coming on twelve years. So
- 21:55we just we don't have the turnover. And honestly, in
- 22:00this industry, three years is like nineteen lifetimes. People just
- 22:04don't stick around. But if you treat them well and
- 22:09you pay them well, there's no reason for them to
- 22:12go looking. And I firmly believe that if you include
- 22:18them and get them engaged. You see, your employees have
- 22:26to have a good experience. If they don't are not
- 22:29having a good experience, there's no way in hell they're
- 22:32going to deliver a good experience for your customers. It
- 22:36just can't happen. So you got to start with your employees.
- 22:40And that's where I start. You know, do I give
- 22:43them equipment that works? Do I give them uniforms that
- 22:47fit and are clean? You know, what is the work
- 22:50environment like? You know? What are the benefits? Like? You know,
- 22:53do we you know, do nice things for them every
- 22:56once in a while you know, on Pizza Friday or whatever.
- 23:00You know. I don't bribe them to do their jobs
- 23:03because I don't think I need to do that. That's
- 23:05what they get a paycheck for. But I do solicit
- 23:09their feedback, Hey do you think we could do this better?
- 23:13And if they have an idea, great, let's try it.
- 23:17And I think that's important for employees to feel like
- 23:21they not that they have ownership, because I think that's
- 23:24a fallacy. They can't. You're the owner. They're never going
- 23:27to have ownership unless you have employee ownership plans. But
- 23:34they can feel engaged. And when you have that engagement,
- 23:39they tend not to disappear on you. They tend to
- 23:41stick around.
- 23:43Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you said said some pretty pretty important things.
- 23:47That actually takes you from being the center of center
- 23:53stage of the of the of that scenario. It puts
- 23:57the employee at the center stage of it where they
- 24:02feel engaged, welcome. You've created this culture where they're we're all,
- 24:08where their mind counts.
- 24:11Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, and you know, and they want to feel that.
- 24:16I mean, yeah, I mean I've had some deads, no doubt.
- 24:21I mean I had one guy steal one of my
- 24:23vans and drive it to downtown Baltimore to buy drugs.
- 24:27Am I still kicking myself for that one. Sure we
- 24:31all make mistakes, but for the most part, we've done
- 24:35We've done pretty well with how we how we've hired
- 24:39and you know, I mean, you can't help what people
- 24:43do on the outside. But you know, realizing that they
- 24:47you know, they have a home life, they've got other
- 24:49things going on. Uh, you know, it was really important.
- 24:52You know, we wish wish them a happy birthday. You
- 24:55don't know what their home life is like. If I
- 24:57wish somebody a happy birthday, one of my employees, I
- 25:00might be the only one that does that. I mean
- 25:03they might go home to the dog and watch TV
- 25:05because they don't have any friends and their family doesn't
- 25:08live around here. M h. I mean, can you imagine me?
- 25:11You know, I'm the only one the boss that remembered
- 25:15the birthday. I mean, how impactful is that?
- 25:19Speaker 1: Yeah? And that's that sort of thing could actually happen.
- 25:23It doesn't matter what the industry is. That can actually happen.
- 25:29Case in point is like you you moved from one
- 25:34coast to the other coast and then into a new country.
- 25:39It was gonna be around to wish you the happy birthday,
- 25:43and and your boss remembers it. It makes you feel
- 25:45warm and welcome, right, so it and it sounds like
- 25:56on the client customer and you try to make them
- 25:58feel warm, welcome and happy and give and deliver what
- 26:02the what the mission is and on on the employee
- 26:08and you're trying to do the same thing.
- 26:12Speaker 4: So well, I mean they're all part of the Sorry,
- 26:15I go ahead finished.
- 26:16Speaker 1: No, No, it's it's okay. Is that what because you're
- 26:20also a consultant according to your resume, that is that
- 26:24what you try to teach other business owners to do?
- 26:27Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I don't. I am, by no means
- 26:31a HR employee trainer, and I will never pretend to
- 26:37be an expert in that area. I know enough to
- 26:39be dangerous. I know enough to say that your employees
- 26:44need to be having a great experience in order for
- 26:46them to deliver one to their customers. But it is
- 26:51all part of the same equation and they are all
- 26:54equal parts. Uh so I'm not I didn't do too
- 26:58well in math in high school. But I do have
- 27:00an equation for a profitable future for your company, and
- 27:05it starts with the QEE quality employee experience, and you
- 27:11add to that q CE quality customer experience. I mean,
- 27:16those are the first two parts, and quality employee experience
- 27:19has got to come first, because again, if that doesn't
- 27:23come first, they can't deliver. And then you add to
- 27:26that quality business practices. But are all of those systems
- 27:30and processes that I've talked about that helps keep things consistent,
- 27:35delivering consistent experiences, and then that will equal a profitable future.
- 27:41So you just got to nail those three things. And
- 27:44I don't like to overcomplicate things. I really don't, you know,
- 27:48So for me, three things is enough to remember in
- 27:51a business. And if you can nail those three things,
- 27:55you're gonna be just fine.
- 27:59Speaker 1: It's somehow that that makes more sense than than the
- 28:02guy saying, oh, you've got to create this thing over
- 28:05here and then tie it to this widget over here in.
- 28:10Speaker 4: Well you know, let me Now, are there things that
- 28:14fall underneath each Yes, of course, but they but everything
- 28:20on the customer journey. And this is what I do
- 28:23as a consultant when I'm working with clients. You know,
- 28:25we look at the entire customer journey and where does
- 28:29the customer interact with the company, and each one of
- 28:32those points is a point that we focus on, and
- 28:36we focus on it from the customer's point of view,
- 28:39not from the company's point of view. So it's, you know,
- 28:42what is the customer experiencing when they walk in our
- 28:46front door, So not what we what we think they're experiencing,
- 28:51what they're actually experiencing, and so we approach it from that.
- 28:56And that's where RealD Webber hits the road. And so
- 29:02that right there is both a employee experience and a
- 29:06customer experience, because well, the employee's got to be there
- 29:10to deliver the experience, and whether that's making sure the
- 29:14door is unlocked and the waiting room has been vacuumed
- 29:17and is clean and is inviting, and the heats on
- 29:20and whatever, and then you know, the guest or the
- 29:25customer is coming in and is experiencing this environment. The
- 29:30two things go hand in hand.
- 29:32Speaker 1: Yeah, you did just say something that I had a
- 29:37bit of an experienced once as as a I spent
- 29:41some time as a retail manager and one of my
- 29:46employees said that they were cold and they wanted to
- 29:50turn the heat up, and I said, no, we're not
- 29:52going to turn the heat up. We'll find some other
- 29:55way to get you warm enough. But ask why the
- 29:59heat was isn't going to be turned up? And I said,
- 30:01because the heat has to be at a certain level
- 30:04so that it's warm and inviting and not too hot
- 30:08and uncomfortable for our customers. Keeping you warm is important,
- 30:15but I can't. I got to balance them both off.
- 30:18So when you talk about that with with your waiting room,
- 30:24is a how do you how do you balance things
- 30:27out so that everybody, everybody is happy?
- 30:32Speaker 4: Well, you know, I mean, you know, I will always say,
- 30:36you know, the customer is not always right, but the
- 30:39customer is always the customer, and they need to come.
- 30:43They need to come first when it because they're the
- 30:45ones with the paycheck, you know, they are the ones
- 30:48that are spending the money and allowing you to go
- 30:51buy groceries and pay your rent and all of those things.
- 30:57And would assume unless you just sit all day long,
- 31:02or unless you have a malady it's an illness that
- 31:06makes you susceptible to heat or cold, that within a
- 31:10few degrees you're going to be as comfortable as the
- 31:13guest coming in. But you are right, the temperature or
- 31:19the environment has to be conducive to the guest and
- 31:26has to be inviting to the guest, because if it's not,
- 31:29I mean again, how many chances do you get to
- 31:31make a first impression exactly one? And if you know,
- 31:35if it's a blazing hot day out and they walk
- 31:38in and it's kind of sort of cool but not
- 31:43really invigorating, lee, oh my god, thank god the air
- 31:46conditioning's on. Well, now they're kind of like they're not
- 31:52they're not refreshed. Well, that's what we want them to feel.
- 31:55We want them to feel thank god there is on.
- 31:58It feels great in here. I'm fresh. Because if they
- 32:01don't have that feeling they one, how long are they
- 32:04going to stay in brows because now they're they're still
- 32:07hot and sweaty from being outside, you know so and
- 32:13you know, hot, sweaty people, cranky people. They don't buy,
- 32:17they don't spend their money. So when they're coming in,
- 32:22we've got to make sure that their first impression is
- 32:26making them happy. I call it moment zero. That exact
- 32:31moment when they come into your sphere is art. What
- 32:35is the the emotion that they're feeling. Is it thank
- 32:39God I'm here, or are is it well geez okay,
- 32:43Well I'm here now, and okay, well there's a pair
- 32:46of jeans over there, maybe I'll go look at them,
- 32:48and well, I'm still really hot. I'm gonna go to
- 32:51the next door and see if the air conditioning is
- 32:53any better there. This is what's going through people's minds,
- 32:58you know. So, yeah, that has to come first. And
- 33:04you're right, I mean, dress your employee, have them wear layers, you.
- 33:09Speaker 1: Know, yeah, you.
- 33:11Speaker 4: Know, I mean when they give a little long way,
- 33:13they can take a layer off.
- 33:15Speaker 1: Well, yeah, there, there, there, you have it, right, Yeah,
- 33:22I was gonna see. The lighting was also important also,
- 33:28Oh yeah, because it had to be Oh hey, I
- 33:33feel that the same thing. There's a lot a lot
- 33:37to be considered in that sort of thing. Right, To
- 33:40make a customer feel.
- 33:42Speaker 4: You have to create an environment that's conducive to the sale,
- 33:46you know, the I mean, you've got to have an
- 33:48environment that is friendly to service and friendly to sales.
- 33:52I mean, so many businesses have what I call a
- 33:55service prevention department or sales prevention department that they put
- 34:00up roadblocks, they put up rules and and you know,
- 34:05policies that get in the way of sales, and they
- 34:10get in the way of good service, and usually it's
- 34:13some corporate mukeety muck that just thought it was a
- 34:16good idea, you know, to have you fill out a
- 34:18form and triplicate and then have you fill it out
- 34:20again when you don't really need to do that. And
- 34:26so think about what's going on in your business and
- 34:29what are some things that you've implemented let get in
- 34:34the way of making a sale, you know, and what
- 34:38are the overall things that create your environment for a sale.
- 34:43You're absolutely right, lighting, definitely, temperature, smell. Smell is the
- 34:48number one sense when it comes to memories. So what
- 34:52does your place smell like? You know, when I work
- 34:55with dentists, I'm like half the time the place smells antise.
- 35:00I mean, nobody likes going to the dentist. So most
- 35:04of them, I convince, go get a little toaster of them,
- 35:08and you buy a bag of that cookie dough and
- 35:13toss one cookie in there and cook it, you know
- 35:15once every hour. The place smells like fresh baked cookies. Now,
- 35:21now that's inviting. What are the senses? What are the
- 35:25memories that fresh baked cookie is eliciting in the patients?
- 35:30They're now not thinking about dentists they're now thinking, oh man,
- 35:34I remember when Mom used to make the cookies, and okay,
- 35:36well maybe they have cookies around here. I can actually
- 35:39get one. So using you know, all of the senses,
- 35:44you know, how do your chairs feel? What's the colors
- 35:46that you're using, you know, in your waiting room or
- 35:50on your uniforms or on your on your vehicles. All
- 35:53that stuff matters.
- 35:55Speaker 1: Wow, it's okay. You ran into some details that I
- 36:01would never have thought of as like, wow, fresh big
- 36:06cookies in the dentist's office.
- 36:09Speaker 4: Well, I mean, Disney does this very well. Disney does
- 36:13this amazingly. Well, you know, they came up with a device.
- 36:17It's called a smelltizer. I kid you not. It's a smelltizer,
- 36:22and they pump in odors everywhere. So if you go
- 36:27on Pirates of the Caribbean in the Magic Kingdom and
- 36:33you pick up that musty odor, you know, like you
- 36:37like like you just went through you know, the tropics,
- 36:43it's not because there's mold growing in the ride. It's
- 36:46they're actually pumping that smell into the ride. You know,
- 36:50same thing about Lot Advans. They're pumping that musty smell
- 36:54in there. A lot of times on main street. They
- 36:57can't be cooking cookies all the time because they just
- 36:59beat they have a mountain of cookies and nobody buying it.
- 37:02So they blow the smell of fresh baked cookies out
- 37:06into mainstream and they do that in a lot of
- 37:11different places because they know that the sense of smell
- 37:16illicits memories.
- 37:20Speaker 1: It either relaxes or excites you, depending on what they
- 37:25want you want you to experience, because I'm sure on
- 37:28the Pirate ride they want you to feel excited.
- 37:32Speaker 4: And yeah, you know, and then when they you know,
- 37:36when they have the little you know, rifle, one of
- 37:41those that they're not pop guns, but the you know,
- 37:44then seventeen hundred's guns that don't shoot one bullet at
- 37:48the time. You know, the smell of gunpowder is muskets.
- 37:52You know, the smell of gunpowder is going through It
- 37:55just adds to the overall experience.
- 38:00Speaker 1: Amazing. It's It's something I would when think of in Uh,
- 38:06I've I've told a couple of real estate agents to
- 38:09throw in a tray of cookies, or you know, if
- 38:14you're going to have open house, you throw in a
- 38:16tray of cookies. You serve the cookies later, on but
- 38:18you but you want that smell of the cookies to
- 38:20be there. It's like I've yeah, but I would never
- 38:24have thought, uh yeah. Some of the places where you're
- 38:30talking about this is like, oh and in in the
- 38:35end it makes sense, right, Yeah.
- 38:40Speaker 4: I mean like if I walk into a restaurant and
- 38:42I smell bleach, I'm believe you know that's that means One,
- 38:48that means I got a problem. Two it's disgusting and
- 38:52I don't smelling bleach.
- 38:55Speaker 1: Yah.
- 38:58Speaker 4: You gotta be aware of that kind of stuff. Again,
- 39:00that's a that's a sales prevention department item right there.
- 39:04Why would your dining room smell like bleach. There's no
- 39:07reason for it, you know, unless you got some other
- 39:11issues somewhere that we need to worry about.
- 39:13Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the places that that of course, everybody
- 39:16has an adversity to go into the hospital. But one
- 39:19of the reasons why that diversity is in places because
- 39:22it smells freshly oxidized or bleached or something. It's like,
- 39:31so you don't it's repelling. You be a good thing,
- 39:37But I don't know, right, It's like you wouldn't want
- 39:43that necessarily for your general doctors practice or as you
- 39:47point out, probably not, you know exactly, you want something
- 39:52that's a little more warm and inviting.
- 39:57Speaker 4: And as to think of all that, you know, it
- 39:59doesn't no matter what business you're in, you know, so
- 40:04at any rate, yes, environment is extremely important.
- 40:08Speaker 1: So it smell is also just as an important part
- 40:12of decorating your office as the paintings, the artwork, the
- 40:17color of the wall, the comfortableness of the furniture, the
- 40:22color of the carpet and all that.
- 40:25Speaker 4: Yep, yeah, it all works in concert with each other.
- 40:29And you know, I mean, you have to do the
- 40:32fresh baked cookie things. No, but you know, there's nothing
- 40:37worse than walking into an office and you allow your
- 40:40employees to eat at their desks and Marge at the
- 40:44front desk just happen to give extra onions on her
- 40:47subway sub Now the whole place smells like, you know,
- 40:51subway onions. That's not helping things, It really isn't. So
- 40:57they can owners can work against you as well.
- 41:01Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I was going to ask that as they
- 41:06how things can actually work against you The bleach smell,
- 41:10the onion smell in an inappropriate place. So the smell
- 41:14has to be appropriate to the to the to the
- 41:17experience and the environment. Yep, mm hmm. So what what
- 41:28I mean. I've heard that, you know, Disney has what
- 41:33they call Smile University, but I never thought that when
- 41:38they talk about Smile University that it would be all
- 41:42the systems, the the experiences and everything that you that
- 41:47you're talking about.
- 41:48Speaker 4: And yeah, they have. For employees, they go through the
- 41:57new higher training is called Traditions, and it's a day
- 42:00and a half and they literally learn all of the
- 42:04traditions mora raise secrets about Disney, about the company, about
- 42:11Walt himself. And when they do these classes, they're really
- 42:15trying to make it so that Walt is in the
- 42:18room with them. So they learn the Disney point, how
- 42:22to point the Disney way, which is with two fingers
- 42:26or three or full hand. You never point with just
- 42:28one finger. They teach you how to be aggressively friendly,
- 42:33which means, you know, you don't wait for a guest
- 42:36to come to you. If a guest looks confused, you
- 42:40immediately go up to them and say, hey, how can
- 42:42I help you? You look lost? And so all of
- 42:46the other things that you know, Disney is known for
- 42:49picking up trash, you know, making sure that all the
- 42:52light bulbs are on. You know, just all of the
- 42:56things that makes Disney unique are really taught in that
- 43:00day and a half and you do that before you
- 43:03go to your workplace. So that's really at the you know,
- 43:06at the at Disney University, is that tradition's class.
- 43:11Speaker 1: Yeah, So because you're starting to run out of time, Yeah,
- 43:17you're creating the perfect customer experience. What would I feel
- 43:22as I walked into into into one of your businesses.
- 43:27Speaker 4: Well, I'd like to think it's perfect. I strive for
- 43:31excellence more and more than perfection. But we want to
- 43:38bring ourselves and elevate ourselves from being viewed as a commodity.
- 43:43So we're all in commodity businesses. I mean a dentist
- 43:46as a dentist, as a dentist, they had all clean
- 43:48teeth the same way. And if you're viewed as a commodity,
- 43:52you have no control over the pricing. The marketplace sets
- 43:56that price. But if you can offer an EXPERI variance,
- 44:01now you have price elasticity. You can command a premium
- 44:05price if you're offering that kind of experience. So one
- 44:11of the experiences we have in our cleaning business is
- 44:16how we get in the front door. So if we
- 44:18don't if we can't get in the front door, we
- 44:20can't do our job. And so we have this completely
- 44:23scripted out. It's a complete system of getting in the
- 44:26front door. And it starts in the street because we
- 44:29park in the street. We don't park in the driveway
- 44:31because God forget, I got an oil leak. Now I
- 44:33got something else I got to clean up. A technician
- 44:36gets out in a clean uniform because he carries extra
- 44:38uniforms with him in case he gets dirty. He smells
- 44:42good because I don't allow smoking, and I don't allow
- 44:45you to wear a cologne. Last thing you want is,
- 44:47you know, somebody showing up in your house smelling like
- 44:49the Marlborough man who just took a shower in Axe.
- 44:53You know, it's kind of disgusting. You know. He's got
- 44:56a special mat with him and a little gift. He
- 44:58goes up to the front door, it lays down his
- 45:00special mat. He knocks on the door, waits for missus
- 45:03McGillicutty to answer. She answers the door and says, Hi,
- 45:05my name's Josh. I'm here to creat your healthy home.
- 45:08May I come in. We don't just barge in when
- 45:11we're invited in, we do an exaggeration of wiping our
- 45:14feet on the mat, and then we put little booties
- 45:17on our clean shoes. As we're entering the home, we
- 45:19present missus McGillicutty with a gift. Now, when was the
- 45:23last time you had somebody come to your house to
- 45:25do a repair or do some cleaning and they brought
- 45:28you a gift. I'm gonna probably have it. I guess
- 45:30it ain't happened. But when we present the gift, it
- 45:35does a couple of things. One well, separates us from
- 45:38everybody else out there because nobody's doing it, which then
- 45:43creates word of mouth and referrals because people will be like,
- 45:47oh my god, now never guess what happened when the
- 45:48carpet cleaner was here. The gift also starts a process
- 45:53called reciprocity. If I give something to you, you feel
- 45:56compelled to give something back to me. So when we
- 45:58implemented the gift, we saw a twenty six percent increase
- 46:02in our into your Package, or about a sixty five
- 46:05to seventy thousand dollars annual increase in our sales just
- 46:09by implementing the little gift. So that's just a little
- 46:13snippet of what we do throughout the entire customer journey
- 46:17that we look for creating service excellence. Wow.
- 46:25Speaker 1: Wow, you want to come clean my house? Right? I
- 46:33mean I mean serious. On a serious note, though, If
- 46:37somebody showed up my doorstep, laid down a mat to
- 46:43wipe their feet, they put on clean booties to enter
- 46:45my home, and then presented my wife with a gift,
- 46:53you've already sold me. Yeah.
- 47:02Speaker 4: Wow, it's and it's that easy. And the gift is
- 47:05an extravagant it's a little four four dollars fifty gift.
- 47:09It's a little custom blue box. It's got a bottle
- 47:12of spot remover or a little bag of cookies and
- 47:14a note for me thanking them for allowing us into
- 47:16their home.
- 47:21Speaker 1: Wow. Amazing. So it works, It works. I just see
- 47:29it working. So what are the best ways for people
- 47:31to work with you and you know, get a hold
- 47:37of you. Yeah.
- 47:38Speaker 4: Well, if you're looking to increase your customer experience and
- 47:44you're looking for a little ways to wow your customers,
- 47:48I've got a new hot sheet out and you could
- 47:50find that at Wow fifty two ways dot com. It's
- 47:54called fifty two Ways to Wow Your customer without breaking
- 47:57the bank. So you got one while for every week
- 48:00of the year. And you know, so, if you're stumbling
- 48:04and bumbling and can't find a way to engage with
- 48:07your customers, well I just gave you fifty two ways
- 48:11and then the other place you can engage with me
- 48:15is on my website, which is Vancemorris dot com.
- 48:19Speaker 1: Okay, I will be sure to put those in the
- 48:23show notes, both of those links and Vance, it's been educational.
- 48:32I think you've taught me, taught me myself a couple
- 48:35couple of things, and I'm sure you're teaching our listeners
- 48:40a lot of different things. So guys, if listening engage
- 48:48with Vance, especially your entrepreneur you're trying to increase your sales,
- 48:52because hey, we need sales so that we can pay
- 48:54our bills and have a happy and free life. Go
- 49:00to Wow fifty two ways or Vancemorris dot com and
- 49:09find new ways in and hire Vance as a consultant
- 49:13to to help your business grow. All right, Thanks Vance,
- 49:18and thank you everybody for listening.
- 49:21Speaker 4: Thank you.
- 49:23Speaker 2: But I don't know, say.
- 50:03Speaker 4: This is days.
- 50:08Speaker 2: A reason said me, little job in shots. We can't
- 50:25try sur wait.
- 50:29Speaker 1: So the show has been produced by Depictions Media. Please
- 51:54contact us at depictions dot media for more information.